Thursday, October 21, 2010

Thursday Overshadows Friday

...but only temporarily.

I just finished watching The Michael Coren Show". To quickly recap, he interviewed six pro-life students not on their views on pro-life topics but freedom of speech. Each student had either been arrested, threatened with expulsion or shouted down by handfuls of dreadfully insecure (and terribly dressed) pro-abortionists (I wouldn't call them activists because that would elevate them to the level of active or engaging which they clearly were not). These pro-life students represent all strata of Canadian academia. Despite the rumours flitting about that the pro-life movement is dying or "there is no debate", these youthful numbers represent growing populations of bright individuals who clearly want to talk about this issue. Whatever one may feel about abortion (or not), one can least agree that an echo chamber does not represent discussion but insecurity and a loathing of free expression. By banning these student pro-life groups, pro-abortionists have given them an enormous platform that covers not only pro-life issues but free expression, freedom of congress, the use of public and private funds and who exactly helms the interests of university students. By shutting down these pro-life students, student unions have opened themselves to legitimate charges of censorship and abuse of funds and popular opinion. I wouldn't ask some jackanapes screeching out "Old MacDonald" to represent me or take my money. The student unions can either pay the same courtesy they give to Jew-Hating Week Israel Apartheid Week or re-fund starving students (not the ones whose daddies pay for their beer; the real ones).

A former University of Colorado professor who compared some Sept. 11 victims to a Nazi is asking the Colorado Court of Appeals to give him his job back after a jury ruled last year his firing was politically motivated.

Ward Churchill says the Board of Regents violated his civil rights when it convened a judicial process to dismiss him after board members said they wanted Churchill fired.

Churchill wrote an essay after the 2001 terrorist attacks calling the World Trade Center victims "little Eichmanns," a reference to Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi leader who orchestrated the Holocaust.

The university fired Churchill in 2007 on the plagiarism charges and other research misconduct allegations. None of the allegations were about the Sept. 11 essay.

This brain-trust not only had the audacity to insult terrorism victims but now he expects the university to forgive his flagrant cheating. Priceless. When you don't have enough grace to know you've done something wrong, do you at least have enough synapses to recognise what creek you've meandered up?

China tried to block a U.N. report alleging that Chinese ammunition was sent to Darfur in violation of a U.N. arms embargo but apparently didn't succeed, U.N. diplomats said Wednesday.

The Security Council committee monitoring sanctions against Sudan met Wednesday afternoon and two diplomats familiar with the closed-door deliberations said China argued that the report by the committee's panel of experts should not be sent to the council. One diplomat said China claimed the panel was unprofessional and flawed, and challenged its methodology.

The diplomats said the committee chairman, Austria's U.N. Ambassador Thomas Mayr-Harting, agreed that the annex to the report would be updated with a letter to include additional information on sources. But they said the report itself would not be changed, and will likely be formally sent to the 15-member council next week.

During Wednesday's meeting, the diplomats said China got no support from the other committee members, who include representatives from all 15 council nations.

According to the diplomats, the draft report said Chinese shell casings were found after attacks against the joint U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur with markings showing the ammunition was manufactured after 2009, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the report has not been published.

There is no evidence that Omar Khadr has ever publicly repudiated al-Qaeda or renounced Jihad, an internationally acclaimed psychiatrist said ahead of testifying about his examination of the Canadian-born terror suspect.

In an exclusive interview, Dr. Michael Welner, whose pioneering efforts to quantify evil led him to develop a Depravity Scale, says that Mr. Khadr is known to have expressed peace-loving intentions only to "those advancing his public image" from behind the razor wire at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Dr. Welner also discounts much-cited comments by some U.S. guards at Guantanamo that the Toronto native is a "good kid" and "salvageable" -- calling them "shallow in their prognostic significance."

"When one leaps to the conclusion about Omar Khadr's future because he is friendly, one might recall that Osama bin Laden has always been described as gentle, likeable and charming," New York-based Dr. Welner told Postmedia News.

"There is no record of [Khadr's] publicly repudiating al-Qaeda, as civilized.